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Stamp Collecting!
Philately!
The collection and study of postage stamps, postmarks, and related materials such as embossed postal marks, Inland revenue Issue Stamps First Day Covers and Presentation Packs.
Stamp collecting is a pastime I enjoyed as a boy and during the long Summer break I would spend time sorting through the shoe boxes full of stamps owned by a Polish chap I addressed as Mr Miscowski . His living room was a stamp archive and contained a large fitted cabinet which spanned the whole wall of some 17 feet and reached the ceiling. Every space was filled with shoe boxes full of stamps, catalogues and thick leather bound stamp albums, but mainly shoe boxes overflowing with stamps. He proudly displayed a number of very rare stamps in glass cabinets mounted beautifully on thick rough buff coloured card. Mr Miskowski was certainly an avid stamp collector and he certainly helped me to catch the stamp collecting bug.
As a boy I did not have a great deal of money to buy expensive stamps and was allowed to sift through a shoe box full of stamps, selected of course by Mr Miskowski. I could take 5 stamps for a penny. I was also given a catalogue which gave a value for used and mint, or unused stamps. I had little idea of the scope of stamp collecting and the size of the market in buying, selling of stamps. I did however understand that I was getting a pretty good deal, if indeed the Stanley Gibbons catalogue indicated value was correct. I did find a stamp from Canada on one of my 10p sifts and when I was paying my 10p to Mr Miskowski his eagle eye and incredible knowledge of stamps and their catalogue value, spotted the stamp from Canada. He reluctantly took my 10p after an innocent small boy smile and I got the stamp. I stopped collecting during my teen years and through most of my adult life up to now and one day caught the stamp collecting bug again. I found the only small album I saved from the various house moves I made throughout my University and working life up to now and looked up the value of the stamp on a number of dealer websites and the stamp I bought for 0.2 pence has a catalogue value of £160 which is a pretty good deal. I wish that I had checked out the value when I was starving for a pizza whilst living in digs but then again I may never have thought of Stamp Mall had I eaten through the £100 or so it was worth at the time and I may now be a bit fatter.
What is a stamp really worth?
That depends pretty much on what someone is willing to pay for it. The catalogue value of a stamp is what you could expect to pay Stanley Gibbons for a stamp in either mint or used condition. The grade or quality of the stamp depends on a vast number of factors and stamps at auction make money generally because there is some history associated with the stamp and a particular collector would be willing to pay more for a stamp depending on the scarcity of the postmark for example or the fact that it was sent from a particular location to a particular location. Stamp dealers are generally aware of the nuances found between stamps of the same apparent type and they are also aware of the scarcity of particular plates that a stamp was produced with. If you expect to have a super valuable stamp which was made after the late 50’s then you will be very disappointed unless of course you wait a couple of hundred years for them to become scarcer still. I would expect that stamps may not be around at all shortly or they will be produced in much smaller numbers as we progress with other forms of communication. If you do have an old stamp then check out the watermark on the stamp to see if it is inverted or it is appears sideways as these will make the stamp rarer and therefore more valuable to a collector. If you do have a stamp which is on an envelope look at the postmark and see if you can see anything interesting about where it was sent from, does it have an unusual design for example?
To see how much a stamp is worth you could visit your library and ask to see the Stanley Gibbons catalogue. This will give you a guide price as the price printed is what you would expect to pay Stanley Gibbons for a copy of the stamp. Keep in mind though that your stamp may have an unusual watermark or postal stamp or phosphor band or colour difference, the list goes on.
The Stamp Mall team will be adding new material to this site regularly so look out for
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Article 1. Plate numbers and the differences between stamp values
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Article 2. Watermark Types
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Article 3. Phosphor bands and stamp values
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Article 4. Starting your collection
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Our On line stamp database with SG values
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Our On Line Store
Thanks for looking in and happy stamp collecting.
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